Alexander (Vol. 2)

by Valerio Massimo Manfredi

  ‘You are lying,’ replied Memnon. ‘You feel nothing for the Greeks and they feel nothing for you. Tell me the truth. I will speak to no one of it.’

  The wind grew stronger and enveloped the two warriors in a cloud of red dust.

  ‘I have come to build the biggest realm that has ever been seen on earth. And I will not stop until I have reached the waves of the farthest ocean.’

  ‘That is what I feared.’

  ‘And you? You are not a king, you are not even a Persian. Why are you so obstinate?’

  ‘Because I hate war. And I hate young, reckless madmen such as yourself who want to achieve glory by spilling blood all over the world. I will make you eat dust, Alexander. I will force you to return to Macedon, to die with a dagger in your back just like your father.’

  The King did not react to this provocation: ‘There will never be peace for as long as there are borders and barriers, different languages and customs, different gods and beliefs. You should join me.’

  ‘It is not possible. I have only one word, and one conviction.’

  ‘Then the best will win.’

  ‘Not necessarily – fate is blind.’

  ‘Will you return my dead to me?’

  ‘You may take them.’

  ‘How much of a truce will you allow us?’

  ‘Until the end of the first watch.’

  ‘That will be enough. I am grateful.’

  The enemy commander lowered his head as a sign of agreement.

  ‘Farewell, Commander Memnon.’

  ‘Farewell, King Alexander.’

  Memnon turned his back and walked towards the northern side of the walls. A side gate opened and his blue cloak disappeared into the darkness of the entrance. The heavy door, reinforced with iron, closed behind him with a long grating noise.

  Alexander returned to the camp and told Perdiccas to go and collect his dead.

  The bearers picked up the bodies one by one and consigned them to the priests and their attendants so that they might clean the bodies up and prepare them for the funeral.

  Fifteen great pyres were constructed and on each of these the bodies of twenty men were placed, dressed in their armour, washed, combed and perfumed.

  A guard of honour from Perdiccas’s ranks shouted out the name of each fallen soldier as he was mentioned by their commander. At the end the ashes were gathered and placed in urns together with the swords of the dead, held over the pyres until red hot and then ritually bent. The urns were then sealed and marked with a scroll which carried the name, family and place of origin of each of the deceased.

  The following day the urns were loaded on to a ship and sent to Macedonia, to rest for eternity in the land of their ancestors.

  That same day, under cover of the ballistae, the Macedonians began to remove the rubble from the breach so as to clear the way for their siege engines. From the top of the hill Alexander observed the operations and saw that inside the city Memnon’s gigantic tower continued to rise.

  Eumenes approached. As usual he was in full combat dress, even although up until that moment he had not taken part in even a single military exercise.

  ‘When that tower is completed, it’s going to be difficult getting anywhere near the bastion.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Alexander. ‘Memnon will have catapults and ballistae installed up there and he’ll have us kept under constant fire at close range.’

  ‘All he’ll have to do is aim into the crowd to cause a massacre.’

  ‘And that is why I want to open up the breach before he has completed the tower.’

  ‘It cannot be done.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I have calculated the progress rates of the work. You must have seen the clock I’ve had constructed on the hill.’

  ‘Yes . . . I have seen it.’

  ‘Well . . . their tower rises at approximately three cubits per day. You must have noticed the other instrument I’ve had constructed alongside the clock.’

  ‘Of course . . .’ replied Alexander, with the slightest trace of annoyance in his voice.

  ‘If you are not interested, I’ll just keep it all for myself,’ rejoined Eumenes, resentfully.

  ‘Don’t be stupid. What is that instrument?’

  ‘A little toy of my own invention – a viewfinder on a turntable which aligns a sighting pole with the object being observed. By means of a simple geometric calculation, I can establish how much per day the new construction rises.’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Well . . . when we have removed less than half of the rubble around the breach, they will have completed their work . . . in other words they will then be able to tear us apart with a few shots from up there. I have calculated that they will have twelve catapults positioned on three platforms, one above the other.’

  Alexander lowered his head and after a short while said, ‘So . . . what do you suggest we do?’

  ‘Do you really want my opinion? Well . . . I would forget about clearing the rubble and I would concentrate all our engines on the north-eastern sector, where it seems the walls are less thick. If you would care to take a look at my instruments . . .’

  Alexander let himself be led to the site and put his eye to the sight.

  ‘There . . . you have to aim first through the external side and then the internal side on the left-hand side of the breach. Can you see? And now turn to the right-hand side . . . like that.’

  ‘It’s true,’ Alexander agreed as he stood up straight. ‘The walls are less thick on the other side.’

  ‘Exactly. Now . . . if you locate all the towers there, by tomorrow evening you could certainly open up a sufficiently wide breach to work around the semicircular bastion and take it from the side. The Agrianians are excellent climbers and if you send them in on that flank they will free up the way for the assault troops who can thus enter the city and take the defenders from behind.’

  Alexander put his hands on Eumenes’ shoulders, ‘And to think that up to now I’ve had you working as my secretary. If we are victorious, you will take part in all the meetings of the high command with full permission to express your opinions. And now let us move those towers and start battering the walls immediately. I want continuous shifts, night and day. The good people of Halicarnassus won’t be getting much sleep for as long as we are around.’

  *

  The King’s orders were carried out without delay. Over the following days, with considerable effort and the use of hundreds of men and animals, the assault towers were moved to the north-eastern side of the walls and the work of the battering-rams began again. It was an obsessive, implacable hammering – a deafening noise that made not only the walls tremble, but also the ground beneath them. Eumenes, on orders from Alexander, personally inspected each of the assault machines, accompanied by a group of engineers who corrected the balance and added on platforms to increase their performance.

  Conditions inside the towers were frightful – the heat and dust, the lack of space, the physical effort involved in pushing the gigantic iron-clad beams against the stone walls, the violent counterblows, the unbearable noise were all ordeals for the men involved in this undertaking. Water-bearers were continually going up and down the stairs, to slake the thirst of the men suffering in their inhuman work.

  But they all felt that the King was watching them closely, and indeed he had promised a generous prize for the first men to bring the defences of the enemy tumbling down. Alexander, however, was aware that the success of their mission was not entirely dependent on the engines and how they functioned – he felt sure that Memnon was planning some countermove.

  He called Parmenion, Cleitus the Black and his companions – Hephaestion, Perdiccas, Leonnatus, Ptolemy, Lysimachus, Craterus, Philotas, Seleucus and Eumenes – to a meeting on the hill.

  The secretary general was still covered in dirt and partially deaf from the noise, to the point where the others had to raise their voices in order to be heard. Behind them, the army had been put on a
lert and was lined up ready for action: in the front row the shieldsmen, armed with light weapons and playing the role of assault troops, together with the Thracian and Agrianian troops. Behind them, in the centre and on the left wing, was the Macedonian heavy infantry; to the right the hoplites of the Greek allies. Out on the flanks was the cavalry. Bringing up the rear were the reserves, under Parmenion’s command – Philip’s veterans, men of extraordinary experience and extremely tough in battle.

  They all waited in silence, their arms at their feet, in the shade of the first row of olive trees.

  In the meantime, on Perdiccas’s orders, a row of ballistae had been positioned on a rise and aimed at the Mylasa Gate, from which the Halicarnassians might easily launch a sortie.

  ‘Eumenes has something to tell us,’ announced Alexander.

  The secretary took a look at his solar clock, at the shadow projected on to the wooden face by a pole standing at its centre.

  ‘Very soon, the wall will begin to collapse on the north-eastern side. The upper layers of stone blocks are already giving way and the lower ones are shifting under the blows of the heavier battering-rams on the lower platforms. The collapse should be simultaneous over a width of at least one hundred and fifty feet.’

  Alexander looked around – his generals and his companions all looked tired after the long battles, the sleepless nights, the continuous counterattacks, the ambushes, the ordeals and the fatigue of the months of siege.

  ‘Today everything is at stake,’ he said. ‘If we win, our fame alone will open up every gate from here to Mount Amanus. If we are defeated, we will lose all we have conquered up to now. Remember one thing above all else – our opponent is certainly about to make his crucial move, and none of us can say exactly what it will be. But just look at that tower . . .’ and he pointed to the gigantic trellis of wood which stood now, bristling with ballistae and catapults, over one hundred feet high, ‘. . . and you realize how formidable he is. And now our army will advance to the siege engines. We must be ready to move forwards as soon as the breach opens. Go!’

  Perdiccas asked to speak: ‘Alexander, I ask of you the privilege of leading the first assault. Give me the shieldsmen and the assault troops and I promise by the gods that tomorrow you will sit and dine in the palace of the Satrap of Halicarnassus.’

  ‘Take all the men you need, Perdiccas, and do what you must.’

  They all went to join their men and when the trumpet blew they set off on the march towards the towers. Only the veterans, under the watchful gaze of General Parmenion, waited motionless in the shade of the olive trees.

  28

  AT SUCH A CRUCIAL moment Alexander felt there was only one horse he could trust fully, and so he had Bucephalas brought to him. He stroked the stallion’s muzzle and his neck and then, at a walk, rode him down towards the walls. At Alexander’s request, Hephaestion and Seleucus rode alongside him on their own chargers.

  A sharp whistling noise made them turn and they saw that the great tower behind the round bastion was in operation now and tight flurries of iron bolts were being fired at the right flank of the Macedonian army.

  ‘Take cover!’ shouted the Black. ‘Get out of there or they’ll run you through like stuck birds. Out of there . . . move, I said!’

  The right wing effected a rapid about-turn and took up position behind the centre while Cleitus ordered his own men to run for the cover of the walls, where the ballistae could not reach them. In the meantime, Lysimachus, who was commanding his own batteries of war-engines from the high ground, replied with a fierce counterattack in the direction of the tower. Some Halicarnassians took the full force of the direct hit and plummeted, screaming loudly, from the top of the construction.

  There now came the noise of the great blocks of stone as they fell from the eastern sector of the walls, hammered by the constant blows from the battering-rams.

  Perdiccas set to with his shieldsmen and the Agrianians. He shouted like a madman as he rushed forward, his spear held tightly, but just then there came a trumpet blast, quickly followed by another – sharp, tense, lacerating. An orderly came galloping up to Alexander: ‘Sire! King Alexander! Alarm on the eastern flank! Alarm!’

  Hephaestion turned to Alexander, ‘It’s impossible. There are no gates on the eastern flank.’

  ‘Yes there are,’ said Seleucus. ‘Near the coast.’

  ‘But we would have seen them arriving at this distance,’ said Hephaestion.

  Another orderly arrived: ‘Sire! They have come down over the top of the walls – thousands of them. They used ropes and fishing nets! They’re on us, Sire!’

  ‘Don’t spare the horses!’ ordered Alexander. ‘Quickly . . . quickly!’ and he spurred Bucephalas on towards the rearguard of his men and saw there thousands of Persian soldiers attacking from the right, letting loose great showers of arrows and javelins. The trumpets rang out again, from the left this time.

  ‘The Mylasa Gate!’ shouted Seleucus. ‘Alexander, look! It’s another sortie!’

  ‘Keep the side gate covered!’ shouted the Black. ‘Careful, damn you! Leonnatus! Leonnatus! Over on that side! Watch out for your flank!’

  Leonnatus turned with his pezhetairoi and found himself facing the mercenary infantry, led by the giant Ephialtes, wielding a bronze shield with a fiery-eyed gorgon which had serpents for hair, shouting, ‘Forward! Forward! Now is the time! Let’s finish them all off!’

  The King rode right up to the front line, where the Persian assault troops had joined forces with Ephialtes’s Greek mercenaries and were attacking furiously, while the catapults on the bastion were now in action with long, arching shots.

  Under a fearful rain of missiles, the Macedonians began to break up and the Greek mercenaries started moving forward, pushing them back with their shields. Alexander, who at that moment was off on the left flank, drove Bucephalas into the midst of the fighting; he brandished his double-bladed axe and shouted wildly to encourage his men. An enormous stone fell not far from him, crushing one of his men like an insect. Blood spurted all over Bucephalas’s flanks and the horse reared up, neighing loudly.

  The King tried in vain to push towards the centre, where his soldiers were taking the brunt of the enemy initiative, but the fighting there before him and the rain of stones from the catapults blocked his way and all his energies simply went into stemming the tide of enemy soldiers which flowed from the Mylasa Gate.

  The Black saw Ephialtes come forward like a wild fury and wedge himself and his men into the Macedonian centre, which continued to lose ground. The young pezhetairoi gave way in front of the frighteningly compact drive of the mercenaries. Only Perdiccas, out on the extreme left of the line-up, held his ground. But the situation was deteriorating. From the top of the bastion tower the catapults began to fire unusual projectiles – amphorae full of pitch and bitumen which landed at the base of the Macedonian assault towers, spreading their contents over the ground. Immediately afterwards, up on the walls, the Persian archers appeared, letting loose a cluster of fire arrows. The fire roared as it spread and enveloped the engines, transforming them into colossal torches.

  Perdiccas then turned command over to his lieutenant and climbed up through the flames to the first platform, where sheer terror had driven his men to abandon their battering-ram which swung freely in its supports.

  ‘Back to your positions!’ he shouted. ‘Resume your positions! The walls are about to collapse. Come on, one last blow!’ He threw his shield to the ground and grabbed a handle of the battering-ram himself, while tongues of flame licked threateningly through the cracks in the flooring.

  Initially the men simply watched on in amazement, astonished by his superhuman courage and then, one by one, they returned to their positions and resumed their task of driving the battering-ram into the walls, shouting to overcome the terror and the unbearable heat of the flames. The great iron head, driven on by the desperation of hundreds of arms, regained impetus and crashed noisily against the walls. The enormous
blocks, already loosened, started to move, then one or two actually fell down in a cloud of smoke and dust. Further blows opened up a wide breach and the enormous collapse that resulted helped to suffocate the fire.

  At the centre of the Macedonian line, however, the retreat of the pezhetairoi was about to become a rout under the unstoppable drive of Ephialtes. Then the Black shouted out: ‘Leonnatus, stop him!’ Hearing his words, Leonnatus cleared his way through the enemy ranks with a series of wild axe blows and found himself facing Ephialtes.

  The two colossi stood there breathless, both of them unrecognizable in their ordeal. They were both bleeding from many wounds and their bodies glistened with sweat like statues in the rain.

  Alexander turned around and saw his father’s veterans motionless in the shadow of the olive trees, unfazed and rested under the impassive gaze of Parmenion. He shouted: ‘Trumpet, call up the reserves!’ It really was their last chance; the rough, rocky ground was littered with stones and made it impossible for the cavalry to charge.

  Parmenion heard the trumpet blast, insistent and full of anguish, calling him to lead his men into battle: ‘Veterans, for King Philip and for King Alexander, forward!’ And suddenly the sound of thunder tore through the leaden air – the thunder of Chaeronaea!

  The enormous drum, hidden among the olive trees, made itself heard and the powerful phalanx started moving forward, spears erect, like some frightful porcupine, in a rhythmic march, shouting at each step: ‘Alalalài! Alalalài!’

  Alexander, who had struggled almost as far as the centre, ordered Leonnatus’s pezhetairoi to open up on the flanks to let the veterans through, and indeed they rushed in like an avalanche against Memnon’s mercenaries, who were exhausted by now. Leonnatus in the meantime was fighting like a lion against his gigantic adversary and the deafening clangs of their blows travelled out over the plain, echoes of a titanic clash.

  Leonnatus had plenty of experience as a wrestler and he pulled a feint on Ephialtes, immediately forcing him down on to one knee. In an instant the Macedonian drew himself up with both feet planted firmly and let fly with a tremendous backhand blow from his axe into the giant’s back, bringing him firmly to the ground.